Chapter Text
The next morning Jake wakes up in only marginally less pain than the night before and takes a solid ten minutes to just lay in bed, questioning all of his life decisions. Eventually he hauls himself up and gets trough all his morning absolutions, followed by another hefty dose of his pain meds. Before he leaves his room, he takes a deep breath and puts on his “happy” face, already looking forward to getting into his link and out of his cursed human body. Some days that is the only thought that gets him out of bed.
He heads to the chow hall with a sense of urgency, knowing that he is going to have a hell of a time if he doesn’t get food on his stomach immediately after taking so many medications. Not to even mention the lecture he will get from grace about taking care of his human body is he doesn’t eat a balance breakfast. She has taken to watching him like a hawk for all of his meals like he is some kind of child. Not that he can really blame her because, well, she’s right. If he thought he could get away with it he really wouldn’t eat as much as he knows that he should.
Fortunately for him, breakfast is a somewhat rushed affair as everyone is scrambling around trying to get to their jobs, so Jake just shoves the first food item he sees down his throat and calls it a meal, then goes back for more under Grace’s stern glare. She ends up not letting him leave the cafeteria until she does and walks with him to the bio lab.
“I know it can be hard, Jake, and trust me, I really do know, but you have seriously got to start taking better care of yourself.” She raises a hand to stop him when he opens his mouth to argue, “At the end of the day, this is your real body, Jake. You’re always going to have to come back to it so you can’t just let it waste away.”
He sighs, “I know you’re right but sometimes I really feel like I would rather stay out there, in my avatar.”
She frowns for a while before seeming to decide not to have this conversation for the umpteenth time and just ruffles his hair, “We’d miss you if you did that, jar head.”
He swats at her hand and playfully glares at her, “You know I’m not one of your kids, right? I swear to Eywa, if you don’t stop that I am going to start calling you Sa’nok.” She laughs again and they lightly tussle for a moment as she keeps trying to mess with him, before she draws back and gets serious again,
“I mean it, marine, you need to keep a tight hold of your boundaries between your human and na’vi lives or you’re going to end up hurting yourself and the people around you.” She stops when she can tell Jake is closing up, “But enough about all that, we’re late. And I can’t imagine that Neytiri and Tsu’tey are going to be all too happy with you, so let’s get going.”
“What?!” Jake starts blankly at her for a moment before checking his watch and realizing how late in the morning it has gotten without him noticing and panicking, much to Grace’s great amusement. She laughs at him all the rest of the way down the hall while he rolls himself as fast as he can. He super maturely flips her off. Once they get to the link chamber, Norm raises his eyebrows at their antics while Max hides his face with his clipboard so Jake can’t see him laughing at him, too. He glares at all of them while clambering into his pod and adjusting his legs. Grace fondly pats his cheek before slamming the lid on him, almost smacking him on the head if he hadn’t put it down just in time.
When Jake opens his eyes, its to the sight of Tsu’tey alone on the branch above him, whittling something. He looks up from his project when Jake begins moving around and offers him and hand up from his sleeping hammock. He ends up overestimating his strength and, when he pulls Jake up, the two end up nose to nose and Jake is treated to an up close of Tsu’tey’s face. His golden eyes widen a bit and Jake swears he can count every tanhi on Tsu’tey’s face. They both stand there, frozen, for a moment before stepping away from each other and Jake quickly turns away, hoping that Tsu’tey won’t notice the blush dusting his cheeks. Honestly, the man has exactly no business being that attractive. Especially compared to Jake himself, who is sure his avatar must look rather “uncanny valley” to the Na’vi.
Tsu’tey clears his throat,
”You’re late again. Neytiri already left and we will have to eat quickly.” with that he quickly turns and starts making his way down the tree, leaving Jake to scramble after him. When they get to the eating area, Tsu’tey grabs food for the both of them and leads Jake to an open area to sit and eat.
”Why were you late today?”
Jake quickly chews and swallows his bite of fruit before answering, ”Oh, I was talking to Grace. She was telling me not to… how to say… not to get in too deep.”
Tsu’tey frowns, “’Get in too deep’? what does this mean?”
Jake chews on his bottom lip as he thinks about how to answer,
”She is worried that I am getting too attached to my time spent here. With you and Neytiri. She reminded me that I will never be able to actually stay here, I will always have to return to my human body and my human life at the end of the day.” He gives a forced chuckle, ”it was apparently pretty obvious that I prefer my time spent here.”
Tsu’tey goes silent for a while, staring down at his food and chewing slowly while a crease forms between his brows. When he finally speaks, he does so without looking at Jake,
”This is something that concerns you?”
Jake stays silent for a moment, turning to stare down at his own leaf of food.
”Honestly? Yes. My time spent here, in this body, with the people, is much more fulfilling than the life I lead back at Hell’s Gate. Not to even mention the fact that this body works much better than my human one.” Jake swallows dryly and pulls his braid over his shoulder to fiddle with it as he speaks. ”Every day it seems to get harder to go back. To go from all this-“ he gestures around to the vibrancy of Kelutral. ”to a life of drab, enclosed buildings and a body that won’t move and is always in pain.” By the end of his little speech, his voice is coming out strangled with emotion and he has to take a few calming breaths to reign it all in. ”If there was a way for me to stay here, I would.”
Tsu’tey seems to consider everything that Jake said before putting his food down and turning to fully face him.
”When Neytiri first brought you, you told the Tsahik about your human body, but I was not listening. Can you tell me now?”
Jake puts his own food down, having thoroughly lost his appetite, and turns to meet Tsu’tey’s intense stare.
”Well, I told you that I used to be a warrior on Earth, right? The humans have a lot more warriors than the Na’vi do. Imagine if you took every warrior in every single tribe on Eywa'eveng and put them all together, that’s how many warriors there are in just my…tribe. The humans have so many warriors because they are always fighting each other. They fight over everything. Land, resources, even people themselves. I was assigned to a particularly nasty fight that had been going on for many years, and I spent two years constantly fighting. The whole time I was stuck there, the fighting was all I knew. I wasn’t allowed to leave or go home. I could only talk to my brother on the phone- one of those long-distance communication devices that Grace showed you. It was awful.” The more he speaks the more horrified Tsu’tey looks and the more his ears pin back.
”There were many small fights that were part of the one really big fight, and in one of those small fights I got injured. It was actually a rescue mission. The… enemy had taken a group of children hostage and they were trying to use them to threaten the warriors into surrendering.”
Tsu’tey gasps in abject horror at that, the very idea of hurting children like that completely foreign to him.
”I went with my team to rescue the kids, but the enemy was ready and waiting for us. Half of my team stayed behind to hold them off while the rest of us went to get the kids. None of the people that stayed behind made it out.” Jake’s throat closes as he recounts that particular skirmish, ”Those people were like family to me… but thanks to them we were able to save all of the kids. There were two little ones that had to be carried. I remember that they were twins, like me and Tommy, my brother. I sent two of my teammates to carry them to the extraction point while the last of us stayed behind to make sure the enemy couldn’t follow them. When the enemy came, there were so many of them. I didn’t expect to survive, and I almost didn’t. I remember watching Jason, one of my men, go down in front of me. Then pain. Then nothing. I woke up days later in the hospital and the doctors told me that I had been shot. The bullet hit my spine, right here.” He turns around and points to the part of his back where the bullet hit. ”In my human body there is a pretty bad scar. It paralyzed me from the waist down. For a year I did physical therapy three times a week, but it didn’t help. I’ll never walk again. And, unfortunately, I’ll be in pain for the rest of my life. To this day, I don’t even know how I made if from the battlefield to the hospital. Someone must have rescued me, but I don’t know who. Or how.”
By the end of his retelling, Tsu’tey is pale with a horrified expression.
”That happened to you? I am sorry I said you were not a worthy warrior. Is the pain bad?”
Jake looks down at his lap and twirls the end of his braid around his fingers,
”Not always. Some days are better than others.”
Tsu’tey leans closer and places his hand on Jake’s back, where he said the bullet hit him, causing a shiver to race down Jake's spine.
”Are you in pain right now? Is there anything I can do?”
Jake clears his throat and tries to keep from flushing again at Tsu’tey’s proximity and concern.
”I can’t feel the pain in this body. It’s one of the reasons I prefer this body so much. That, and the fact that I can, you know, move around. You know, the first thing I did when I linked into this body for the fist time? I took off running! You have no idea how good that felt after so long… as for my human body… it’s not doing so great right now. I haven’t told any one else, but lying still all day, while I’m in this body, makes the pain much worse.” When he sees Tsu’tey’s look of concern, Jake is quick to let out a false laugh and bluster on, ”But it’s really not that bad! I just have to take some medicine. And anyways, it’s all worth it to be here!”
Tsu’tey frowns and he runs the hand still resting on jake’s back up and down his spine,
”Should you go back? Spend less time here? I don’t want to worsen your pain.”
Jake is shaking his head before Tsu’tey is even finished speaking,
”No! Absolutely not! Being here is… it’s the only thing that makes life worth living! I haven’t felt this alive in years! There is nothing for me back there. Please don’t tell me to go back.”
Tsu’tey’s frown deepens and he opens his mouth to say something else, but is cut off by another voice.
”The meal is long since over, JakeSully.”
Both men whip their heads around to stare at the Tsahik in surprise, neither of them having noticed her approach, and scramble to their feet as quickly as they can, almost tripping over each other, and Mo’at gives them a distinctly unimpressed look.
“Oh my god,I am so sorry, Tsahik!” Jake’s ears pin flat to his head and Tsu’tey quickly steps in.
”Tsahik, it is my fault. I was asking him questions and lost track of time.”
Mo’at stares them down with raised eyebrows for a moment before crossing her arms.
”While I am glad to see you getting along, it is past time for JakeSully to come with me.” with that she turns with a swish of her tail and starts walking back towards her healing antechamber, but after a couple steps, she pauses and turns around to pin Tsu’tey wit an intense stare.
”Lost track of time, did you?” Then, without giving him a chance to respond, he continues on her way, leaving jake to hurry and follow her.